Light transmitting elements, including fiber optic cable is well known for various uses. Its defining trait is its ability to transmit light from a source to an emitter with minimal losses over short or long distances.
It is also known that various vehicles rely on marker lights and headlights, among others, to make them visible during evening hours as well as to provide information to others regarding turns and other vehicular movements.
Marker and headlight lenses have been used in vehicle lighting applications for many years. The lenses generally comprise a transparent plastic or glass material having a tint or color added as necessary to the application. The lens then colors the emitted light as well as providing protection to the bulb. Prior art lenses also comprise a plurality of adjacent convex lens' giving a dot matrix appearance to the marker light in operation.
Prior art uses of the fiber optic cable is primarily focused on transmitting light from a source to an emitter without taking advantage of other unique features of the cable, for example, light transmission efficiency over short distances and the numerical aperture. Further, the plastic lens presents a noticeable feature on a vehicle surface, regardless of its state of operation.
Representative of the art is U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,966 (1998) to Schwing that discloses a lighted bumper guide that uses a singe fiber optic filament extending from a light source to allow a driver to identify the extremity or ends of the bumper of a vehicle.
Also representative of the art is U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,881 (1995) to Miller that discloses a multi-lens luminaire having a generally tubular macro-housing having a plurality of generally tubular micro-housings, each micro-housing retaining a fiber optic light guide emitting light from a remote source of illumination.
The prior art does not teach use of short fiber optic cable strands in an array used as a lens with a light source. The prior art does not teach orienting the fiber optic strands in a single lens to discriminate between different light sources. Nor does the prior art teach use of adjacent, light transmitting elements in an array. The prior art does not teach use of fiber optic strands coordinated with a vehicle surface in such a way as to render a marker lens invisible when not is use.
What is needed is a lens comprising a bundle of light transmitting elements. What is needed is a lens comprising a bundle of light transmitting elements inclined at an angle to a light source. What is needed is a lens comprising a bundle of fiber optic cable strands. What is needed is a lens comprising a bundle of light transmitting elements that discriminate between different light sources. What is needed is a lens comprising fiber optic strands coordinated with a vehicle surface in such a way as to render a marker lens invisible when not is use. The present invention meets these needs.